New Cataclysm Beta Launcher (Soon!)

Our favorite floating skull Zarhym just announced that a new launcher for the Cataclysm Beta is in the works. It should be available with the next beta patch, and will incorporate a few of the programs you already need to run during patching. Namely, those are the Launcher, the Updater, and the Downloader. It will also stream game data while you are in the game, playing. In other words, patching should happen much easier, and hopefully - faster. If the downloading process is slowing down your internet, or if the patching is eating your processor, you could always stop either one of those processes and let it finish after you are done playing.

Update: Zarhym has posted a FAQ on the new launcher, you can read all about it after the break!

The new Cataclysm Launcher allows you to stream game data while you play. This will reduce the time you spend downloading, installing, and patching World of Warcraft. We will be releasing this new Launcher into the Cataclysm beta soon, and we’d like to get your feedback on the toolset and gameplay experience.

To continue playing in the Cataclysm beta after the next patch, you will need to do the following:

Uninstall your current Cataclysm beta client

Windows

From your Start Menu, click Control Panel, then Add/Remove Programs

Mac

Select your “World of Warcraft Beta” folder and drag it to the Trash icon on the dock

Select “Account” at the top of the page, and then select “World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Beta” from the Game Accounts list.

From the Download Game Client box, select Windows or Mac to begin downloading the installer.

What’s changed:

Launcher

We've redesigned the Launcher to explain your installation progress. You will see a new progress bar with sections (Red, Yellow, Green) that represent the amount of data you currently have installed.

There are three stages of download progress:

SETUP (RED): Core game content is being prepared. You cannot enter the game at this time.

AVAILABLE (YELLOW): Major game content is not completely applied. You can play, but your game experience will not be ideal.

PLAYABLE (GREEN): Final game content is almost complete. You may experience a few game issues with playing at this stage.

Updater and Downloader

The Updater and Downloader have been integrated closely into the Launcher, resulting in less application switching when patching and installing.

Notes:

All World of Warcraft data will continue to download and apply whether you wait in the Launcher or are playing in-game. If you find the play experience undesirable, you may exit the game and allow the Launcher to continue the download. This may improve the play experience for users with low bandwidth.

Let us know about your experience with the new Launcher. When sending feedback, let us know what your connection speed is and what stage (Red/Yellow/Green) your progress bar is showing. This will help us optimize the Launcher and get you in the game faster.

Q. How much data is in each stage for a full Cataclysm installation? A. In general, about 5% of the data is red (required), about 70% of the data is yellow (base gameplay), and about 25% of the data is green (extended data).

Q. How is data assigned to each stage? A. Data is assigned to each stage based on the relative need for that data. Red is required to get into the game, yellow is data needed for base gameplay, and green is for variants of base game data (higher-resolution graphics, alternate sounds, other flavor data).

Q. How do I know when the entire game is downloaded? A. The progress bar will reach 100%, and then will not be shown on subsequent launches (until there is a new patch released).

Q. Will I still be able to download patches from mirror sites? A. Yes, standalone patches will still work.

Q. Will the downloader still use P2P / bittorrent? A. Yes.

Q. Will large patches still be downloadable in advance through the background downloader? A. Yes.

Q. Will it be possible to download the entire game before I begin playing it? A. Yes.

Q. Is this mandatory? A. No. Users will have the option of playing before all game data is downloaded and applied. They may choose to enter the game, or they may choose to wait.

Q. On patch days, will I be able to start the patch download before the realms are back up? A. Yes.

Q. You are requiring a reinstall of the beta client. Does this mean I will have to reinstall my WoW retail client when I buy Cataclysm? A. No. As with the prior two expansions, there will be a lengthy patching process to migrate users from the prior major version (3.0) to the new major version (4.0). Data for this patch will be downloaded in advance via the background downloader.

Q. Will I still be able to download a patch once and copy it to multiple machines? A. Yes, as long as you have fully downloaded the entire patch. However, as with the prior expansions, patches from a previous major version (all patches prior to 4.0) will not work with the new major version.

Q. What if I have a low bandwidth connection? A. After the initial beta release, users with connections below 1 MB/sec will be required to download all data before entering the game. Users with connections above 1 MB/sec will have the option of entering the game before all data has been downloaded and applied. Users at any bandwidth may exit the game and resume the download if they find the play experience undesirable.

Q. How will this affect new characters logging in for the first time? A. If a player chooses to enter the game while content is still downloading, data for the introductory race video and zone fly-through will be applied at the loading screen to ensure a smooth game introduction. This is currently only functional for new worgen characters. Other races have not yet been optimized, which may lead to issues with the opening fly-through if they are loaded while content is still being downloaded.

Comment by Bl4ckSh33p

Comment by Gweryan

Comment by metian

Sounds good. Only I never had any problems with patching or loading anything. Ohwell

Comment by WyriHaximus

on 2010-08-03T05:06:46-05:00

So they are bringing the trial client to the rest of the game nifty :O

Comment by zAce

on 2010-08-03T05:09:26-05:00

Cool. Always looking forward to improvements Blizzard releases.

Comment by Arsvent

on 2010-08-03T05:27:33-05:00

I am not at all surprised by this. I play D&D online as my side game to keep WoW from feeling stale and they already use this system and its a free game. So from experience I have to say this makes the time when the servers are back up and 9999999999 of us are trying to patch less taxing on the player if they can not patch during the server downtime due to us being able to play wile it finishes. This also make the install process less of a hassle on launch day as now we can all install to a point then log in, if the servers don't die, and play wile it finishes. Note however that this makes the game a tad slower, graphics have to be lowered as the highest graphic level is typically the last thing they send out and generally the game play during this is not at its best. But then they did say "Major game content is not completely applied. You can play, but your game experience will not be ideal." or "Final game content is almost complete. You may experience a few game issues with playing at this stage." before you clicked that play button so don't whine about it.

Comment by Hoddie

on 2010-08-03T05:35:45-05:00

Isn't this how the US trial client works currently? You can download and install the US client on a 10-day trial within about 5 minutes, and be playing your first level 1 character almost straight away. Everything is there, it just downloads the data as needed. If you view the map, there's a very brief pause while it downloads, and if you zoom out and load a different map, again there's a pause while it downloads.

Edit:

So they are bringing the trial client to the rest of the game nifty :O

Ah yes, you beat me to it :)

Comment by ceto

on 2010-08-03T05:50:50-05:00

Reinstall? FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU-

Sounds good. Only I never had any problems with patching or loading anything. Ohwell

It wasn't broken, but that doesn't mean it can't be improved.

Comment by AlicanC

on 2010-08-03T06:46:05-05:00

Why would you enter a beta if you don't like reinstalling and such? Betas are for testing and debugging purposes. (This goes to everyone.)